Hospital gunman had sexual assault record

O'FALLON, Mo. | Police and others say Gary Sheets, who killed his ex-girlfriend at a medical clinic near St. Louis just days ago, had spent two years in prison for sexually assaulting a different girlfriend who had tried to break up with him.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday that Sheets, 45, served prison time for sexually assaulting a St. Louis woman he had dated and moved with to Colorado in 1998.

Sheets, a former blackjack dealer, returned to Missouri after his release from prison in 2000. But because of his status as a sex offender, he could no longer work at a casino.

Last year he met Jenenne Meadows, an avid poker player, at a bar and the two hit it off.

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On Friday, police say he killed Meadows after a standoff at St. John's Mercy Urgent Care Center in O'Fallon, where she was a lab technician.

Friends told the Post-Dispatch that Sheets moved in with Meadows, 47, in October 2007, but the relationship soon went sour and he moved out in May.

Authorities say Sheets entered the clinic late Friday afternoon carrying a handgun and ordered others inside to get out. They say he then went to the second floor, where he held Meadows captive in a locked room for about 90 minutes.

Her ex-husband, Ken Meadows, said Sheets let her call her oldest son, Kyle, 22, to say goodbye, but when he didn't answer, she called her next-oldest son, 21-year-old Anthony.

"She told Anthony what was going on," Ken Meadows said. "Then this guy Gary takes the phone over and got rather graphic as to what he was going to do and how he was going to deal with her."